


Unmooring

by cher



Category: Villette - Charlotte Brontë
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-05 23:54:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5394941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cher/pseuds/cher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucy Snowe: 0. Ginevra Fanshawe: 43.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unmooring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skazkanasmorka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skazkanasmorka/gifts).



> While this is not an explicit fic, there is still an age difference between Lucy and Ginevra, and Lucy is a teacher at her school. Warning if you prefer to avoid that dynamic.
> 
> With many thanks to Rosencrantz for excellent beta. All remaining mistakes are my own.

There came a time when, overtaken by such an onslaught of that wild weather that is so dangerous to my calm nature, I allowed the storm in my depths to get the better of me. Summer tempests have ever called my soul to rise and fly, and for a week the Rue Fossett was shaken and rattled with a ferocity never before matched in my history. One storm I could have weathered, buttoned up that rebellious passion that - to my detriment - lurks inside me. But days and nights of sudden wild squalls, the skies flashing and arcing with light and the boarders going about in huddled, praying bunches - two or three nights of that wind in my face as I sat out on my window sill, and that ancient call in my bones and depths to but live, Lucy! Just live! - I was undone. I felt almost as I had when on the hated stage with Ginevra, swept up in the strength and joy of my own sudden power.

My uncharacteristic excited spirits went unnoticed by most of the inhabitants of the school, our hands full as they were with keeping order among the rather more highly strung Catholic girls. Dr John was much in evidence, handing out prescriptions of rest and calm and a soothing draught here and there.

One night, the high winds shrieking in my ears fit to carry my poor spirit off and away, and rain lashing my outstretched feet as I perched on my sill, the door to my chambers sprung suddenly inward. I turned to see Ginevra, dripping rain and in her nightgown and cap, her face pale. I marvelled that her slight form had summoned the strength to burst in so, as the force of the winds through the open window exerted a strong pressure against the door. Indeed, the thought had only crossed my mind but that the ferocious wind caught the heavy door and slammed it closed with force fit to shake the plaster from the walls. I could not in good conscious think less of Ginevra for the shriek she let out at the noise; it was clear to me that she had been roused from her bed in sudden and trying circumstances.

"Lucy!" she cried, high and anxious, one slender arm reaching toward me in what I had to name as a touchingly concerned gesture. The other she kept wrapped around herself in an admirable but rather uncharacteristic display of modesty. "Come away from the window! Oh!"

Obliging this once, as she spoke with genuine distress, I clambered ungracefully back into my room, closing the window behind me - not without some struggle. I note Ginevra did not move to assist, but a shock to the system can only carry one so far.

The astute reader will recall that Ginevra has ever been lovely to me, even at the height of my powers of moderation. In this desperate hour, bedraggled, wet, somewhat frightened, and thrust upon me just as my soul had worked on its frayed bonds and slipped loose on the sea of wild currents in my breast - looking upon her was like to the sight of the moon rising on a misted night, mystery and beauty meeting as one. I stood as if one spell-bound, the expected acerbic greeting unavailable to my lips.

Fortunately for the tattered remains of my dignity, Ginevra is an observant creature only when planning a campaign to obtain favours or finances. At this she excels, but she had long since abandoned any hope of winning her coquettish way with my unsympathetic person. It was the one thing to my advantage on this most perilous of nights; had she turned her wiles on my scattered wits at that moment she should have had every thing in my power to grant her. Oh! She was lovely!

She stepped closer to me, her eyes wide and her face so pale. The loss of her usual healthful pink glow I felt like a pinprick to my heart, even as I chided my over-effuse spirits for their immoderate tenor. I reached out my arms to her as if in a dream, as if watching another, more fortunate Lucy Snowe greet her dear friend.

The pricking of my heart grew to a surging pain at the small cry Ginevra made, at the speed at which she came into my arms and laid her head on my waiting shoulder. The attentive reader will recall that I had been deprived of embraces since the departure of Madame's smallest child to the countryside. I was surprised at the fierceness of my reaction at the small pressure of Ginevra's blond head against me. The storm, and rain still clinging cool on my feet, the wildness running through my spirit ... I could do nothing but clasp her tight to me, disregarding the cold of her wet nightdress and cap.

I felt, after a moment, that I had somewhat regained the power of speech, though I fought hard to hold the tremor and wild emotion out of my voice. I do not know how well I succeeded, but trusted to Ginevra's inveterate self-centredness to protect me.

"Whatever is wrong?" I asked her steadily enough, though I feared that the uncontrollable way in which my arms, still in possession of that other Lucy Snowe, stroked her dampened back betrayed me.

"Oh!" she sobbed into my shoulder, her breath warm on my neck, "Lucy! The roof has blown in, and the rain fell down onto my bed as I slept, and my frocks will be ruined!"

Oh, the selfish girl, I thought (I confess) fondly. No regard for the other girls in her room, of course. Still, it would be alarming in the extreme to be so rudely roused from a sleep, so perhaps I ought to indulge her outrageous worry for her own skin. In any case I was incapable on that night of cruelty to her, prevented from giving the sharp response that was more properly warranted. Instead I took her shoulders and pressed her backward a little, that I might see her face. She trembled, and my heart softened again; this was no drama acted out for attention or gain.

"But you are not injured? Only wet from the rain, and suffering from a shock?"

"No; I am not hurt, I think that the roof has blown up and away."

"And the other girls? No others injured?"

It was obvious that the thought had not occurred previously; she had to consider. "No, I don't believe so, but I could not say for certain. I came to you immediately."

My blood surged in my ears at this, though I told myself sternly that Ginevra had been employing me to take care of her problems since our first meeting, and that there was no difference in this.

Before I could recover, she went on, and I think I had not given her proper credit for obtaining her own way after all. She had, it seemed, somehow read in me my sudden vulnerability to her ways. 

"Lucy, dear Lucy," she said, going so far as to stroke my neck. "I have had such a shock, and my bed is not fit for habitation. You will allow me to share with you, I am sure? You are a proud creature, my Timon, but not so cruel as to put me out?"

Reader, I confess I had never in my life been so undone. I am sure my face was a picture, and I cannot say what reply I made. I recollect it was intended to be something along the lines of my duty to check upon the welfare of the boarders, but there is no other word for what action I took then: I fled.

I took my time in proceeding to Ginevra's room, composing my racing heart and painfully hot cheeks. By the time I arrived, I found the situation well in hand; Madame Beck and Mademoiselle St. Pierre directing operations efficiently. Madame Beck inquired as to Miss Fanshawe's whereabouts, and I conveyed my message that she was unhurt and would stay in my room until her own could be repaired. Madame nodded unconcernedly and waved me off, returning her attention to the task at hand. Dismissed, I turned to make my way back to my room, attempting to find some equilibrium in my racing thoughts.

Reaching my door all too soon for the comfort of my unmoored fancies, I stood quietly outside it, attempting once more to bring my surging spirits under control. Was it not my lot to lead a life unremarkable and staid? Was that not my considered and committed creed? Hope, and excitement, have ever been my greatest enemies, and I did not want to allow them control of me now, just as my life had settled into this comfortable absence of privation. I stood resolved, and confidently pushed open my chamber door.

The sight that greeted me undid all my careful work. Ginevra, my professional coquette, had availed herself of my best nightgown, uncovered her hair, and installed herself in my bed. She lay like a picture - albeit the kind of picture usually confined to the back rooms of gentlemen's clubs - with her golden hair flowing and the covers drawn back, all the better for me to appreciate that she had made free with my wardrobe, I was sure. The audacity of her served to counteract my speechlessness, so I have that to be thankful for.

"My Diogenes, your face! Don't be concerned, you know I have every regard for you and will return your nightgown unharmed," she said, mistaking - I hoped - the reason for my agitation. I noted that she seemed quite recovered from her shock and now brought to my mind a woodcut of a young lioness I recalled from old days at Bretton, lounging at her ease.

"You are welcome to it, and gladly. It will do you good to wear something plain and honest, you vain creature." I was indescribably glad to find something of my usual manner toward Ginevra available to me again, and I closed and locked the door behind me. Considering a moment, I took the precaution of draping my housecoat in such a way as to block Madame Beck's almost certainly assured attempt to peer through the keyhole. I could not have said why I took this precaution; only that it seemed prudent and easily explainable by the disrupted and disturbed night.

"Oh! Cruel Lucy; you know I have suffered a shock just now. Could you not be kinder? I am much more refined and delicate than you are; I was fleeing this beastly storm, and here I find you almost out on the roof! You gave me a real fright, I don't mind saying."

Truth to tell, I was mortified to be caught indulging my riotous spirit as I had been. It would be fatal to betray that to one who took such joy in tormenting me, however. I murmured some reply, and was saved from further grief by the very storm itself choosing that moment to return in force. The room shook with thunder, and the rain came again, striking the window pane with a roar that made me glad that I was no longer in its path. Ginevra let out a small shriek and clutched the covers up to her neck. It appeared she was truly made nervous by the storm; I saw none of the careful cut of her eyes that would suggest playing for a reaction.

I sighed and resigned myself to a night of little sleep, observing the way my spirits were rising again with the wind, and the effect of Ginevra beside me. I was sure she would make a poor bed-fellow, inconsiderate creature that she was, but equally sure that I would remain awake all through the night even should she sleep like the dead.

There was nothing for it but to turn down the lamp and clamber ungracefully into my occupied bed, which, it must be said, did not have proportions generous enough for the use to which it was now put. I lay by necessity very close beside my companion, and she wasted no time in curling herself closer still, as if made so frightened by the storm that she sought comfort in my nearness. I am ashamed to say that I did nothing to dissuade her; my newly-awoken need for the touch of another human being was too fresh upon me, and the press of her body was a sweet ache and relief all at once.

I hoped that she would not observe the effects of this on my person, or my uncharacteristic allowance of her liberties. I was shocked to my quick when she pressed her case and burrowed boldly into my arms. She spoke against my throat, and must surely have perceived the racing of my blood.

"I am so frightened, Lucy. This wind! It is wicked! I know you are aflutter with scandal and all your stuffy propriety, but take pity on a delicate girl not made of your vinegar and vigor. There is no one here to see," and with this plea wormed herself still closer.

Again I suffered surrender to the other Lucy Snowe, quite losing control of the actions of my own arms. Without instruction from me, they tightened around Ginevra's shoulders, and one of my hands crept into her silk-smooth hair.

Bemused, beset by the twin buffeting of my body's eagerness for human touch and my spirit's terrible wildness, I alternated between quailing in fear and ascending the heights of ecstasy. I could do nothing but lie still and silent, stroking Ginevra's hair and holding her against me. By and by I gathered the wit to entreat her to sleep, and I believe that she did.

For myself, I spent the night largely awake and marvelling: her scent, her body, so firm and yielding, her breath on my neck. The storm continued outside my window, and the great upheaval of my inner world raged on. I venture to say that I had never before known such happiness, or felt myself to be in such peril.

I must have slept, though I cannot recall it. Chief among my thoughts was that this whole act would be begun anew the next night; it was the nearest thing to impossible that Ginevra's room should be deemed repaired tomorrow. The thought was the furthest thing from soothing, and I feared for my powers of attention in the classes I must teach in the morning.

I felt both shameful excitement and deep trepidation for what liberties Ginevra might think herself capable of if given a second or third chance to practice her skills of persuasion upon me. I thought it probable that in this state I found myself in, I would allow her any thing she wished if she should only say that she wanted it.

The morning dawned, still grey and storm-tossed, and I dragged myself from her embrace long before she would think of stirring. I could do nothing but prepare myself for what might come, and spend my thoughts on deciding if I would follow the call of my spirit or try to commit to my life's doctrine of moderation.

I feared I had lost the battle already, and that come this evening every thing would change again.


End file.
